Migrating G5- Intel iMac: smoothing the transition, unusual setup....

Question

I've had a new Intel iMac for literally two months now, to replace my aging revA G5 iMac, and have not yet found the time to get it set up. I'm hoping to get to it this Sunday.
One thing that's been holding me up is the desire to have the transition as smooth as possible and worry that it might not be. This is a production machine (maybe not in the traditional sense, but I run my life on it, so that makes it "production" for me) and I don't like the idea of rocky transitions, particularly in the area of data and app migration.
One of my primary questions, and the primary question of this post, is whether (and if yes, how best) to use Migration Assistant.
So on my current G5 machine, I have the internal HD divided into 2 partitions:
Partition 1 contains:
a) the OS (10.4.11);
b) my admin user account, which I only use for troubleshooting and the occasional admin tasks that are awkward under my standard user or in any event more convenient when running as admin; and
c) a couple of other infrequently-used user accounts (e.g., a couple of guests that very occasionally use the machine)
Partition 2 contains:
a) My primary user account
b) Some data that I prefer to keep outside my main user account, primarily to make my daily backups more manageable, and which I back up manually.
1. So, first question is whether Migration Assistant can handle that kind of setup. I seem to remember using it successfully when migrating from my G4 iMac to my G5. My G4 iMac had four partitions (this was in the early days of OS X when some were recommending putting OS 9 on a separate partition). I don't remember what I did but do seem to remember using Migration Assistant for most of it.
2. Second question: I assume I will have to repartition the HD on the Intel iMac and reinstall OS X from the DVDs if I want more than one partition on my HD. I'll probably do 2 partitions again and leave a bunch of free space (not included in any partition) for other uses later. So my first boot should be directly from the install DVD.
If I do that, can I still use the Migration Assistant? Again, I'm thinking I must have done this when I set up the G5 five years ago. What would my procedure be, if it's not going to be really obvious?
3. I have all my data backed up to multiple external HDs using Retrospect 6. My alternative would be to restore data from the backups. The main issues with this approach are: (a) it might not be quite as "put it back exactly as it was" as Migration Assistant would do things (although Retrospect is *supposed* to do it); and (b) I don't have Retrospect 8 yet, and there continue to be reports of problems with it (although 8.1 or 8.2 or whatever they are up to now) is supposed to have resolved a number of the very significant problems with the 8.0 release.
So the next question: Should Retrospect 6 run under Rosetta under 10.6? Would you trust it to do so when restoring your data? Would you trust the latest Retrospect 8 to do so? Which would you pick?
4. Finally: I have read scattered reports of problems with using Migration Assistant to migrate from a PPC to an Intel Mac. Some of them seem to just involve slow performance in web browsers, possibly caused by PPC plugins or other lurking PPC code that I guess would require Rosetta to run, slowing down performance. (I have the tricked-out i7 machine so I'm not that worried about sluggish performance, although it makes sense to ferret out unneeded PPC code of course.) There may have been other problems reported as well but I don't remember what they are at the moment -- I'll have to look some more.
So: Is the Collective Mind aware of problems with MA in migrating PPC -> Intel, and if so, thoughts on preventing/mitigating the issues?
Thanks so very much. I know this is a ton of questions. I'm grateful to you for helping smooth out this transition.

Answer 1

Joel Siegel wrote:
So Disk Utility in 10.6 lets you "hot"-resize partitions?
That came in with Leopard.
I had considered moving my primary user's home folder to the boot partition, based on advice in this forum (adaptive hot file clustering, etc). But it sounds like in some ways it may be simpler to make the initial setup more or less identical to my current one, and then change it later.
Probably. I haven't tested whether you can restore a second partition to the one you're running from; if not, it would take a couple of extra steps to get the home folders there without screwing up the permissions. And I always try to only make one big change at a time.
Since I have 1 TB to play with on the new machine, and only 250 GB +(edit: 150 GB)+ on the old one, I have plenty of room to create large partitions. My understanding from the links you posted is that I can enlarge a partition as well as shrink it (as long as the enlarged partition doesn't bump into an existing partition, and after backing everything up of course
Mostly. You can expand a partition "down" in the diagram DU shows, but not "up."
I wonder if I can create free space in between partitions in Disk Utility.
Yes, sort of, by making, then deleting a partition. But since you can't move or expand a partition "up," I can't think of a reason to do that. (I understand some other utilities can do that.)
You posted some reasons in this thread about why separate partitions are not recommended (seek times, adaptive hot file clustering), and I understand those. Are there others?
Those are the main ones I'm familiar with. Another (that you probably won't run into for a long time, if ever) is that if you guess wrong, you may either waste a lot of space on the OSX partition, or have too little there, with potentially nasty consequences.
One reason I've persisted in this partitioning scheme has to do with backups and restores, although I may be totally off base in this. I've envisioned some scenario where something on my boot volume gets so badly hosed that an Erase and Install is the best cure. But if my primary user data resides on a separate partition it would seem to make it much easier to get back in business -- I wouldn't have to worry about restoring my primary user data. The other user accounts on the boot volume would of course have to be restored.
There is no +Erase and Install+ anymore. No +Archive and Install,+ either. Just Install. It replaces OSX with a fresh version, without disturbing anything else. It even preserves configuration and settings in /Library, and files installed there by 3rd-party apps. Rather amazing!
Some folks do that, of course (perhaps out of old Windoze habits), but it's rarely required, or does any good on OSX. In some unusual situations, perhaps it would help. A couple of very experienced users here have not done a so-called "clean install" since 10.2!
I assume Setup Assistant will guide me through the steps of hooking up the old machine and booting it. I don't know if it needs to boot in Target Disk Mode for this to work, but I strongly suspect it does.
Yes. If you choose to transfer directly from it, which is probably best. You can also transfer from a clone (and, once you're on SL, a Time Machine backup). All documented in excruciating detail in [Setting up a new Mac from an old one or its backups|http://web.me.com/pondini/AppleTips/Setup.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Snow Leopard > Installation and Setup+ forum).
Thanks again. I'll post back after the surgery.
Cool. Fingers crossed here.